Although school districts operate on a yearly schedule similar to that of their students from September to June, Evesham Township School District still has several areas to look ahead to for the calendar year of 2015.
At the most recent Evesham BOE meeting, Superintendent John Scavelli addressed some of what’s coming in 2015.
According to Scavelli, one of the first upcoming events for the district will be the presentation and adoption of a tentative 2015–2016 budget.
“Our timeline is similar to the previous years. Early in February, we are looking to hold at least two community meetings to present preliminary budgetary information,” Scavelli said. “At the end of February at the February board meeting, Feb. 26, we should have the tentative budget presentation and the board will meet to adopt the tentative budget.”
Scavelli said if the timeline from the state Department of Education remains similar to what it has been in previous years, then in early May, the board will hold the public hearing and vote on the completed budget.
The 2014–2015 budget was set at $75 million in total appropriations, with the average Evesham home assessed at $270,000 seeing a general fund tax levy increase of 1.25 percent or 2.72 cents.
As for the potential outline of the upcoming budget, Scavelli said the №1 thing he and the district would be looking at, as he said the district does with any undertaking, is to ensure everything is sustainable.
“Any initiatives we take on, we want to ensure that they will be lasting into the future,” Scavelli said.
Scavelli said the district also wants to maintain reasonable elementary class sizes, which he called “important” to the district, and the district will also work to maintain and enhance the instructional and educational programs it already has.
In regard to Goals 2017 — the district’s six-year strategic alignment plan that has mainly been a general set of directions for the district from 2012–2017.
Scavelli said the continuing implementation tasks are related to student achievement, staff and professional development and integration of technology in the class room.
“With regard to technology for the upcoming year, we’re looking at replacing equipment and additional software and supports for technology integration, as well as staffing enchantments,” Scavelli said.
Scavelli said another area of Goals 2017 to be carried out would be work toward the district’s Tier III gifted and talent programs, mainly through program updates and staffing, and work toward summer programs for supplemental literacy, specifically for second and third grade.
Another big event for the district in 2015 will be the first Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC test.
The district participated in the state pilot projects last year, and the district has also upgraded bandwidth to prepare for the tests. The 2014–2015 school year is also the first in which every student at the middle school level has access to a Chromebook, the lightweight laptop computer running the Chrome operating system from Google, and in 2015, the students taking the PARCC test will do so on those computers.
In regard to questions about PARCC that parents might have, Scavelli said the district is planning parent nights, most likely in February, to answer questions and familiarize parents with the test their children will be taking.
For children whose parents do not want them to take the actual test, as has happened at other districts who participated in the pilot program last year, Scavelli said at this point, the plan is “really no different” than anything the district has done in the past.
“The biggest difference is that the children will take it on a computer, using a computer, so we will address it the same way we have done in the past if there are students who refuse to take the test,” Scavelli said. “We’re still discussing those things and gathering information and getting ready for it ourselves.”
